Drones: Consultation Response

Lord Berkeley of Knighton Excerpts

Monday 7th January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sugg]

Gatwick used a number of methods and different layers were involved in addressing the incident, including UK technology, but my noble friend highlights a very good point—that this is an international challenge. He is quite right that Israel has well-developed technology in this area, and we will continue to work with all our international partners to ensure that we have the best mitigation against future drone attacks.

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)]

My Lords, I want to make two points. I completely appreciate that it is easy to be wise after the event in terms of Gatwick, for example, but the Department for Transport’s paper dated July 2018, which is quite recent, was still talking about only a one-kilometre exclusion zone. At the time, many pilots said that that was insane. After all, if you think about how long it takes to land an aircraft or to get an aircraft up into the air, the distance covered is miles more than one kilometre. Therefore, I am very glad to hear that the zone is to be extended. Is advice from pilots being taken on this? Some airports need bigger exclusion zones; some need smaller ones.

My other point was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Pickles, and concerns prisons. Will we have exclusion zones around prisons? The number of offences in prison areas mentioned in the Department for Transport’s paper is quite high.

[Baroness Sugg]

The noble Lord is quite right that in July we brought in a one-kilometre aerodrome restriction, but that was always meant as an initial measure. We did not have any protection beforehand, and that is the case with many countries. It was an interim measure and we said at the time that we would work very closely with the aviation industry, pilots’ unions, including BALPA, and NATS to question whether the restriction zone was large enough. We have come to the conclusion that it is not. Obviously hundreds of thousands of people live within a five-kilometre boundary of airports, so we need to make sure that we have the right exclusion zone. However, we have had conversations about this matter and have now seen evidence that, in order to ensure safety, we need to extend the restriction, and that is exactly what we are doing.

The noble Lord also rightly points out the issues around prisons, and the Ministry of Justice and the Home Office are working very closely on those. Last year they launched Operation Trenton to work together to intercept drones and track down the criminals behind them. To date, there have been 17 convictions related to drone activity and that work will continue, but it is the same challenge. The correct technology does not exist at the moment, although it is being developed very quickly. As a department and as a Government, we have invested in the extension of that technology and there are lots of interesting commercial opportunities too. As the technology develops, it will help airports and prisons, as well as this building and other important infrastructure.